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Some Parents Want To Stay Home
How this might raise wages
Several years ago, a co-worker told me about a male friend of his who had chosen to take two years off from work. I was curious and asked for more information.
“When they had their child, the wife took two years off so she could easily breastfeed and bond with the baby,” he explained. “They were both earning decent money and they’d saved enough to be able to do this. Then, after she found a job, he quit his.”
“How did it work out?”
“Well, it’s been trickier for him,” my co-worker said. “Employers look differently at men who take time off. After a year and a half, he started sending feelers out for his next job. It’s a good thing he gave himself the extra time to land something, because it took him almost a year.”
This highlights the discrimination that men have faced when it comes to taking time off. Even if they did it for health reasons, they face a stigma.
For people who are wed to their careers, therefore, and dream of climbing the corporate ladder — taking time off is not a great idea.
However, for some people, the pandemic revealed to them what they were missing when they prioritized work. And many of those people are no longer wanting to be on a hamster wheel.
